


divine intervention

by orphan_account



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M, blood and non-graphic violence in drabble v, each is set in a different au, implied character death in drabble ii, the others don't need warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 12:14:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12276261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Seven revamped shirayuki drabbles that I originally wrote a while back for a big drabble collection, but have decided not to use





	divine intervention

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you might remember my work "nobody knows what lies beyond" that I took down about a year ago because I decided to redo it. These are from that, but edited some, though some of these have never been published. I'd decided that all the pieces of flash in the revamped version of nkwlb will all be set in the same 'verse/timeline, so none of these fit any longer

i

The ladies in their extravagant gowns turn expectantly toward Shiraishi-ou as he strides purposely through the ballroom, each hopeful that their king might ask for her hand in dance. He spares not a single glance for any of them, though, his gaze instead fixed straight ahead on the man with wavy, blue-black hair.

"Yukimura-kyou."

Turning to face him, Yukimura blinks slowly, then inclines his head respectfully. "Heika."

"Can I have this dance?" he asks, extending his left hand, a lopsided grin on his face.

The lord glances down at Shiraishi's hand, then up to meet his gaze. He raises an eyebrow before wordlessly taking his hand and returning the smile with one of his own.

 

ii

It takes a moment for his brain to process what he's seeing—rather, what he  _isn't_ seeing.

When it does, he stops immediately in his tending of the garden and squeezes his eyes shut. Unheeding of whether the action would transfer the soil from his glove to his hair, he presses the inside of his wrist to his brow and takes a few deep breaths in a futile attempt to steady his heart rate, counting slowly to three in the hopes that, when he opens his eyes again, the world would be saturated once more.

When it isn't, he stands and bolts into the house, pulling off his gloves and throwing them down with abandon. He scrabbles for his cell on the table and scrolls through the contacts until he reaches the entry that reads "Seiichi." Hurriedly he taps Call and desperately presses the phone to his ear, chanting, "Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up," under his breath like a doomed mantra, his frantic mind unwilling to believe what his heart already knows as tears fall unbidden to the table.

 

iii

"This had better be good for you to have called me out here, Kuranosuke. I haven't gotten up this early since I retired from club, and I quite like my sleep."

He's standing a few paces from where Kuranosuke's sitting in the grass of the park, unheeding of the dew. The pink and yellow of the brightening sky is behind him, leaving his face in shadow, but Kuranosuke can tell his expression's soft and less annoyed than his words would have him believe. Seiichi crosses his arms over his chest in an attempt to hide his small shiver in the chill morning air, but Kuranosuke doesn't miss it, and neither does he miss that his boyfriend's wearing one of the sweaters he's stolen off of him.

"Move in with me," he blurts.

Seiichi blinks. "We already decided that we'd room together in college."

He shakes his head. "I know that. I meant after. I meant—"

With a sigh, Seiichi crosses the distance between them and plops down next to him. "I know," he murmurs, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, leaning his head against Kuranosuke's shoulder.

He knows enough to take that as a yes.

 

iv

With a soft _whump_ and a loud exhalation, Shiraishi flops back onto the grassy hill. Sweat clings his shirt to his torso. He shifts so that none of his overheated limbs are touching.

Yukimura comes to a stop alongside him, peering down at him with an imperious eyebrow raised.

"It's  _hot_ ," he stresses in response to that unvoiced question, half-heartedly fanning himself for a moment with his right hand before letting it fall limply back to his side.

Yukimura hums in agreement as he lays down beside him with all the grace that Shiraishi had earlier thrown to the wind, stretching his own limbs out as well to mirror him.

Shiraishi turns his attention skyward, to the clouds, away from the distracting presence of the teen beside him. "That one sorta looks like Kenya's iguana."

Pursing his lips in concentration, Yukimura squints and tilts his head a bit. "I don't see it."

"See, there," he says, stretching out an arm to point at the iguana-cloud. "There it sorta looks like his head, then his spines, and there's his tail curling in."

A short hum of disbelief escapes Yukimura's throat as he crosses his arms. He shifts to lay his head on Shiraishi's chest to try to see from his vantage point; Shiraishi can hardly bring himself to mind the added heat. "I still don't see it."

As he lets his arm fall with a thud, he just huffs softly, breathlessly; with Yukimura this close, he can hardly do much else.

 

v

With rapt and morbid fascination, he watches the bodies fall before him, blood spattering his castle walls, pooling dark on red carpets and white marble tiles. Seiichi has known death before, but this close…

"You were never just an ordinary jester, were you?"

Shiraishi flicks his eyes back to study him for a moment, never once stopping the motions of the scythe that he wields with swift, cruel precision as if it were an extension of his body. "Of course not, dear King," he smirks, and another invader falls to his wicked blade. "Do you think you would still be alive in the hands of an ordinary jester?"

The young king presses a balled hand to his lips to fight down the growing nausea; the iron stench of blood and death is almost too much for him now. "Who are you, really?"

The last enemy felled, Shiraishi spins to face him, sluicing the blood off of the blade of his scythe with a practiced flourish. Seiichi flinches. Shiraishi bows low, smirk still playing his lips. "Just your humble court jester, my lord."

 

vi

Drawing his cloak tighter around himself, Seiichi stares with hard eyes out over the dark, star-studded sea at the flickering flames filling what used to be his city, breath condensing in white puffs before him. "Those bastards will pay," he seethes.

He feels a weight on his shoulders then, and cranes his head back to see Shiraishi drape a woolen blanket over his shoulders. The lionheart joins him at his side, seeming for all the world unaffected by the cold. He reaches out and twines their fingers together, a silent reassurance to his king that those bastards would, indeed, pay.

 

vii

Thunder cracks loudly overhead and wind whips his hair violently about. As the control over his emotions slips, so too does that over his magic. The image of his beautiful face twisted in unknowable rage, teeth bared savagely as if ready to bite off an offending head or two, blue eyes glinting like a summer storm, is utterly terrifying.

"Seiichi," Kuranosuke murmurs softly, soothingly, into the mage's ear as he wraps his arms around him. The man struggles against him, but he tightens his grip, radiating a calmness that he most certainly doesn't feel, knowing, as another deep peal of thunder reverberates through the air around them, that he's failing desperately.


End file.
